[lbo-talk] Salon on Andrea Dworkin

[John Adams]

Here's the link: 
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2005/04/12/dworkin/print.html

Two paragraphs stand out. I see myself (at least a version of myself) 
in them as much as I do Dworkin:

"She was one of the last remnants of the extremist spirit you encounter 
when you go back to the source materials -- leaflets, underground 
newspapers, manifestoes -- created right in the moment, the spirit that 
called for, and firmly expected to get, permanent revolution, the 
abolition of work and the summary shooting of "pigs" in the street. It 
was the kind of spirit that had teenagers planting bombs in post 
offices for hazy reasons. For Dworkin, it eventually evolved into the 
idea that rape victims should be allowed to personally execute their 
attackers. That idea was grandiose, it was idealistic and, like 
Dworkin, it was ultimately self-defeating."

	and

"Dworkin came out of and contributed to a subculture of feminism that 
specialized in this kind of irresponsible overstatement. A certain 
style developed: Throw out a handful of lurid, grisly anecdotes as if 
they amounted to an indictment of an entire class of people (usually 
men), who, if the worst of them can be shown to be guilty of such 
outrages, must all be equally responsible for them. The shock will 
soften your audience up enough to keep them from asking just how 
typical such atrocities really are and how widely condoned. Yes, they 
do happen, but like the handful of kidnapped little girls during the 
summer of 2002, such horrors can be made to seem epidemic when they're 
actually a rarity. Meanwhile, the much less exciting, if far more 
common, troubles of women who are simply trying to feed their children 
on inadequate wages, or get a decent job, fall by the wayside."

	John A